MailChimp Swings to Deliver Malware Onto Your Device Supposedly from a News Service

It’s never fun to receive an invoice. However, it’s even less fun when the invoice has a cute little button to click and subsequently puts malware on your device. The mailing service, MailChimp has been used to send email messages as spam to users in hopes that the little “View Invoice” button gets clicked.

To be clear, MailChimp itself is not the one sending the so-called invoice. It is merely being used as the tool to send the email out to massive numbers of people. The company that appears to be sending it is a news site in Australia called Business News Australia. To make matters worse, it looks like it is being sent from an administrator account of the company.

1.  Always be leery of email messages that arrive unexpectedly or from sources unknown to you. In addition, if you get an invoice and you don’t recall what it could be for, contact the company that supposedly sent it in a completely separate manner from replying to the email. Pick up the phone or send a new email message and hand-type the email address into the “to” line.

2.  While it used to be somewhat easier to identify phishing in emails, it no longer is the case. Cyber thieves are becoming more sophisticated and detail-oriented with their products and sometimes it is nearly impossible to tell just from looking at it, if an email is phony. So, spend a few extra minutes to verify before clicking anything.

3.  If there is very little information in something like an invoice email, it should immediately be considered suspicious, especially if you don’t expect it.

4.  In addition, if you still don’t have anti-malware or a complete security solution on your computer and mobile devices, consider doing so right away. This is a fairly inexpensive way to put another barrier up between cyber thieves and you.

It is being reported that the subject of this particular message does include a typo, but don’t count it. That said, watch for a message with the subject that includes “Inoice 00317.” Just don’t consider it safe from that one simple verification.